New York, NY (Top40 Charts) The waiting has finally paid off: Mari Kodama's complete Beethoven piano sonata cycle has finally arrived. Although not the first with this achievement, the very idea that an artist can play this music and still introduce a new perspective, as Kodama so often proves with her performances, is astonishing.
As Gramophone eloquently phrases it: 'Never bearing down heavily on the music, she always allows Beethoven his own voice.'
After starting the recordings in 2003, Mari Kodama completed the final piece in 2013. Once again Ms. Kodama meets all expectations in the pursuit of these horizons, and she entirely takes on the challenge with the last instalment of her critically-acclaimed journey through this ever-fascinating cycle. It is then only fair that this feat is celebrated in the form of a collector's item SACD box set with its larger-than-life surround sound.
One can't have too many Beethoven sonata cycles in their library when the performance is this fabulous and the surround sound is just to die for.
The box set is available worldwide as of 1
September 2014.
ABOUT Mari Kodama
Pianist Mari Kodama has established an international reputation for her musical sensitivity and outstanding virtuosity. The pianist has played with such orchestras as the Berlin Philharmonic, London Philharmonic, Philharmonia Orchestra, Hallé Orchestra, the Montreal Symphony, the NDR Symphony Orchestra, Vienna Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Tokyo Metropolitan Orchestra, Yomiuri
Nippon Orchestra and the
Berkeley Symphony, among others. The Los Angeles Times pronounced her performances of the Prokofiev Third Piano Concerto "commanding and electrifying."
One focus of her versatile work are educational projects such as the "Klangwerkstatt" at the Bad Kissingen festival, or a lecture series with Beethoven sonatas. She has established her own chamber music festival in Forest Hills, San Francisco.
At the Conservatoire
National de Paris, she studied piano with Germaine Mounier and chamber music with Geneviève Joy-Dutilleux. Following conservatory she studied with
Tatiana Nikolaeva at the Salzburg Mozarteum and became a private pupil of Alfred Brendel.
For more information visit: https://www.marikodama.com/
ABOUT PENTATONE
PENTATONE is a Dutch classical music label specialising in high-end, multi-channel surround sound recordings. It was founded in 2001 by three former Philips Classics executives. PENTATONE's catalogue includes performances by conductors Kent Nagano, Marek Janowski, Sir Neville Marriner, Mikhail Pletnev,
Sir Colin Davis, Yakov Kreizberg,
Simon Murphy and Lawrence Foster; instrumentalists Julia Fischer, Mari Kodama, Arabella Steinbacher, Nikolai Lugansky, Nareh Arghamanyan,
Martin Helmchen, Sa Chen; and orchestras such as the Russian
National Orchestra, the Wiener Symphoniker, the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, the New Dutch Academy and the Bolshoi Opera.
Website: https://www.pentatonemusic.com
Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/pages/PentaTone-Classics/123564810369
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/PentaTone1
Twitter:https://twitter.com/PENTATONEmusic
